Monthly Archives: August 2017

The world keeps turning, and there are many things to ponder these days. Delaware Grammy has had more than enough to keep her hands busy, and there hasn’t been enough time to process much of what has gone on in our world.

If I didn’t believe . . .

But I do! I’ve found that sure anchor for my soul and even when I’m heartsick or discouraged or uncertain about what is going to happen or how people will cope or what will ever become of the people I love or even whether some of them will make it safely HOME, there is that sure anchor that the winds will not overwhelm my little boat and it will not sink. The Master of the Wind, the Maker of the Sea is in this boat with me and He has promised that He will never leave me, never forsake me.

There has been so much to be happy over these past few weeks. Certain Man and I went with my brother, Nelson and his wife Rose to North Carolina to our older brother, Clint’s wedding. (You can see pictures on an online album that has a link over on my facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/maryann.yutzy). We had a wonderful time. The wedding was low-key, holy and joyous. It’s interesting to think about the dynamics of getting a new sister in law at this stage of our lives. There are a host of possibilities to consider, and there is so much history on both parts that are now part of this bigger whole, and it’s both awesome and scary! But it is also so very, very sweet, and I am happy for my brother’s happiness.

I came home to finish some important paperwork, and to get ready for Blind Linda’s return home and to get ready for a “meet and greet” reception for Clint and Sharon next week. I knew that my time was going to be pretty full, but it was time to get on with these other things that had been put on hold until after the wedding. Blind Linda has made excellent progress and the therapists at Genesis Health Care deemed it time for her to be moved back home. (This may have had something to do with the fact that her 100 days were going to be up on September 1st, but she has been doing well, and they would have probably moved her home last week if I had been home). In any case, she is scheduled to be released on 09/01/2017. This Friday.

Over the last few months, there have been some questions put to me gently about whether we should take Linda back. “Don’t you enjoy the freedom of not having to worry about her?” “You’re getting older, and it would be nice if you didn’t have to do this.” “When are you planning to stop taking care of ladies?” “Don’t you wonder if maybe Linda is going to be ‘too much’ for you?” All well meaning, and said with love, the comments were nothing that I could dismiss lightly. I am getting older. She is a lot of care. And I am going to be tied down incredibly much, at least at first.

From the beginning of this saga, back at the end of January, when Dr. Kottom, the gastroenterologist, came back from doing Linda’s colonoscopy, and said gravely, “We need to talk,” I’ve prayed much about this situation and how I should be involved. It has been a tough seven months, and there were times when we didn’t know if Linda was going to make it or not. There have been plenty of times when it looked as if she was not suitable for family care placement. The prayer that I have consistently prayed has been, “Lord Jesus, may it please you to make clear what your will is in all of this. For Linda, for me, for our family. If Linda is not to return home, let that be crystal clear. And please, Lord Jesus, let this be something that is obvious to all concerned, that it would not just be a case of me deciding that it’s too hard, or that I don’t want to do it. Let there be a concise, external, physical reason and let there be no question.”

It was a selfish prayer, to some extent. It sounds like I don’t want responsibility for making the decision, and in part, that’s true. But there is also that whole thing of Linda, her history with us, this being her home for 17 years, and how she has endured so much change and misunderstanding in her life and how very much I would like for her to live out whatever time she has left in a familiar, safe and peaceful environment. She may not appreciate it. She may not even realize what could be. But I know, and it hurts my heart to think of her not being cared for with gentleness and understanding. I’m not saying that I’m always gentle and understanding. However, it is my goal to love and care for those entrusted to us in a way that will reflect Jesus — to the ones who are my superiors, to the families of those for whom we care, but especially to Our Girl Audrey and Blind Linda. The knowledge that, unless we speak Jesus into their lives, they may never know, is a “charge to keep, I have!”

So the days have passed, and on Monday, I found myself on my home turf, digging out from being away, picking beans, doing laundry, unpacking the “stuff” that seems to get so unorganized when we travel. I was tired from the long trip on Sunday, but it was good to be home. Around ten o’clock, Certain Man said he was going to bed, and I said that I was coming soon. I had been experiencing something strange in my left eye, and wanted to make a quick check on the internet to see if I should be concerned enough to call my doctor the next morning. I was having these small flashes of light in the upper left corner of my left eye. They were not huge, and sometimes I almost felt like I wasn’t really seeing them, but every now and then there was these small, silver streaks, dancing off the edge of my peripheral vision. I was very tired, and I read a bit, but nothing impressed me as being too urgent, and I decided that it could wait until morning unless it got worse. I decided not to tell anybody. Yet, anyhow. I went to bed, feeling vaguely uneasy.

Tuesday morning I got up and everything seemed to be fine. No light flashes, no nothing. I had a “heavy” head, almost like a headache that was trying to happen, but nothing significant, and there was much to be done. I worked on some computer things, worked on paper work, answered phone calls, made phone calls, and then, along about 10:30, I noticed something in my upper left eye’s line of vision. It was like a rat’s nest of hair that looked like it was hanging over the edge of my glasses. I went to brush it away, and it disappeared, but not by my hand. I realized that it was something like a “floater” in my eye. H-m-m-m-m-m. This was more concerning. It wasn’t really large, but it did appear to have some strings floating off of it. I decided that I should call my eye doctor for advice.

“We want to see you today,” said the suddenly solemn receptionist when I told her my symptoms. “We are always concerned about retina tear with symptoms like this.” Retina tear??? Oh, dear. I went to the internet to see specific symptoms and treatment and recovery time. What I found there was disconcerting. Well, I would just need to go and see what Dr. Iskander would have to say.

“Deborah!” I hollered up the steps to Middle Daughter.

From somewhere in her apartment on her side of the landing I heard her answer. “What’s up, Momma? I’ll be right there!”

“I just wanted you to know that I’m going in to the eye doctor,” I said. “I had some light flashes last night and today I’m having some string-like floaters and they said they want to see me.”

The reaction was overdone, of course. “Mom, you aren’t driving yourself!”

Of course I am,” I said. “I need to go by the nursing home and take some clean laundry in for Linda and then I’ll just run right over.”

“Mom, it’s not safe,” said my nurse daughter. “I’ll take you!”

“Someone will need to be here for OGA,” I said, feeling myself wilting down into an “almost-blind-already-looking-for-a-guide-dog” old woman. “Do you want me to see if Christina can help?”

“Yes,” said Middle Daughter forcefully. “See if she can come and be here.”

And so Eldest Daughter was called and brought in for reinforcement, while I contemplated my immediate future. I reviewed the symptoms and realized with a start that I had almost every single one of the warning indicators for the retina tear. And I thought about what this was going to mean to Linda being able to come home in a few days. The prospect was daunting. Immediate surgery. No physical activity. No lifting. No exertion for weeks. “Oh, Lord Jesus! What are we going to do?”

I do not profess to hear the audible voice of God, and I’m careful with the words “God said . . . ” unless I’m quoting scripture. But I’ve been given the Holy Spirit, even the “Spirit of Truth” who speaks to my heart, and comforts me and gives me help in time of need. And this was a time of need for me. I needed to purposefully redirect my thinking and praying.

“You’ve got this, Lord Jesus,” I whispered above the anxious noises in my head. “I’ve been asking for you to make it clear to me, and I believe that you have a best plan here — for me, for Linda, and for all concerned. I pray that this will be a clear cut answer, that I will KNOW what I need to do before we are out of time. Give me courage, whatever is going on. I believe that you are in this and that you will go before me, giving me exactly what I need, and that you will provide for Linda as well. I reject the feeling of frantic panic and I will not allow these anxious thoughts of “what if” to cause me to be a faithless mess.”

The time for the appointment came. It was raining hard and the sky was gray. Middle Daughter drove me carefully to everywhere I needed to go, and waited in the car like a hovering guardian angel. The staff at MyEyeDoctor was efficient. My wait was not unduly long. I listened for discouraging words and indications that my eyesight was on a steady, steep decline, but through the precursory evaluation the assistant was pleasant and gave no indication of anything. Then Dr. Eskander came in. He is one of my favorite people when it comes to doctors. To read his bio online sheds some light on his motivation, and I am impressed with his life theory and the impetus that drives him. He was thorough, but he wasn’t at all depressing. He was reassuring and kind.

And when he was done, he said, “Well, your retina is in fine shape. There are no tears, nothing to worry about. What you have is a separation of the vitreous gel from the retina, called posterior vitreous detachment (PVD). I want to see you back in a month to make sure it isn’t worse, but you should be just fine. It causes “floaters” that can show up as threads or cobwebs and it’s annoying, but it isn’t serious.” He went on to tell me what I need to do in case the small flashes become a lightening bolt and the floaters are big and starting to obstruct my vision (Get to Christiana Hospital as fast as possible!) but he reassured me that he could find nothing wrong with my retina.

I wanted to be sure about what I could and couldn’t do. “Are there any restrictions?” I asked. “Are there things I should or should not do?

He looked at me with a funny grin. “Well,” he said, trying to look serious, “I think you should definitely give up boxing,” He paused like he was thinking hard. “And bungee jumping, too. I don’t think you should do any of that. But otherwise, I think you’re good!”

I laughed, of course. (Mental images here.) It was funny. But the overwhelming feeling that was flooding my soul at that moment was a sense of the presence of Jesus, standing there and saying, “I’ve got this. I’m going to be with you through it. It may not last for months and months, and it may be a lot harder than you realize, but I’m with you, and this is the way. Walk in it with courage and grace and joy.”

Whew! I could have danced in that doctor’s office. I went in with a deep unknown, and no idea of how things were going to be, and suddenly it was all done and I’m healthy and things are good.

Good?

Well, there was that whole issue of developing cataracts since my visit there a year ago. I have a family history of cataracts, but thought I maybe had beaten the odds. They aren’t bad, at least not yet, and Dr. Iskander said they were another something to watch.

There was also a sentence in the online site that was another indication of “why” the visceral separated from the wall. “The condition is common among people over 50 years of age and is not serious.” That was comforting to know except for the inference that parts of this body are no longer young.

One other thing. In reading over the office notes, I found this little jotting: Patient appears to be well nourished. Huh! I wonder what that has to do with anything.

Well, that’s a gentle way to describe my particular body shape, I guess. (That doesn’t mean I like it!) But when I consider that over what could be noted on my chart regarding a retina tear, my heart gives grateful praise.

And since care for Blind Linda won’t involve boxing or bungee jumping, we are planning to bring her home when scheduled. Tomorrow. At one o’clock.

There seems to be some conspiracy against Delaware Grammy’s nose. Ever since returning from family vacation last week, there have been assaults upon my olfactory sensory neurons that are anything but pleasant.

It started on Wednesday when I had an appointment @ 10:00am in Dover. Because our small group meets at our house on Wednesday evening, I took a look around my house the night before and decided that drastic measures were needed before I left for the appointment. The kitchen was in a mess, my corner was utter chaos, newspapers were scattered about and there was an offensive smell coming from a closed ice cream bucket on my counter where I had been putting table scraps, melon rinds, tomato discards and even onion cuttings. That would need to be dumped into the bucket that went to the composter. I also had a Sam’s Club Rotisserie chicken carcass that needed to be disposed of.

So Wednesday morning I flew around and got a great deal of things accomplished. The kitchen got straightened, the papers were sorted and put into their proper places. The dishwasher was loaded to the gills, and started, and I decided that I would empty my ice cream bucket and dispose of the chicken carcass as a very last thing before heading out. So when all was accomplished, the last counter was swished, and I was dressed and ready to go, I picked up the container with the chicken, and the ice cream bucket and headed out to the back deck, where resided the big bucket with a lid on it that carries “stuff” to the composter. (When I was a little girl, we called it the “slop bucket” and we carried it to the pigs . . . but I digress.)

Anyhow, I carried the stuff out and dumped the carcass first, and then sent the contents of the very smelly, very full ice cream bucket into the larger pail. It seemed that things did splash about rather muchly, but I didn’t think too much of it. I made sure the ice cream bucket was empty, and carried it back to the kitchen. I washed the bucket and disposed of the Sams container, gathered my stuff and headed out.

I wasn’t very far down the road when I smelled something really stinky. It smelled just like that stinky old slop bucket. I kept searching down the front of my shirt, scrutinizing my skirt and my shoes, even checking out my nylons to see what ever could be clinging there that would be making such an unacceptable smell. I got to thinking about my appointment, and wondering what they were going to think when I arrived smelling like a slop bucket. Oh, dear. I found some wet wipes that I keep in the car and washed my arms and hands, wiped my neck and face, and even brushed over my clothes with them. I had some deliciously good smelling Rose lotion, and I worked that into my hands. It seemed to help, but every now and then, I would still catch a whiff of something. I do not know what it was, even to this day, but I finally decided that the smell had lodged in my nose and kept sending out a warning. But whatever it was, it wasn’t pleasant. And it served to make me feel a little insecure, to say the least.

Then Thursday, I had a basket of laundry from the nursing home from Blind Linda that needed washing, and I was so puzzled. I’ve been doing her laundry from there since the end of May, and I have NEVER had it smell so strong of old urine as that basket of stuff did. It was so strong and stale a smell that I wasn’t sure I could even get it out of her clothes in a satisfactory manner. So I shoved it into the washer, added some laundry booster, some smell good beads, plenty of detergent and whitener, brightener, and washed it up. It smelled sweet when I was done, but sometimes when I came into the house, I thought I still smelled something suspicious.

Today the bad smell seemed pretty much contained in my laundry room. And let me tell you, it was “rankin’!” Shew! I just could not figure it out, and of course I kept complaining to my family about it. They didn’t think they smelled it, (at least not “too much”) and I couldn’t put my finger on what it was that could possibly smell so bad. I looked and sniffed and sniffed and looked. Nothing would yield the results I wanted. And the smell seemed to have several possible indicators. Most of the time it seemed like a dirty diaper. Sometimes even more offensive — like a dead mouse. I even thought that someone may have even brought a live sea creature in a shell home from the beach in their pocket, where it (naturally) died and was now making its presence known. I sniffed the various articles of clothing in the closet and none of them seemed to be the culprit.

Then in the middle of the afternoon, Middle Daughter took a load of sheets to the wash line and when she came back in, she said, “Oh, Mom. I found the source of your bad smell!”

“Oh, really? What was it:” I asked.

“Remember that bucket of potatoes?” She asked.

My heart sank. Of course I remembered those potatoes. “Yes?” I answered, afraid to hope and fully prepared. We had dug the last of our potatoes before going on family vacation and I had left some of them in a bucket. When we were leaving, I set the bucket outside the back door and had told Audrey’s caregiver that she could use them if she wished. and then I had pretty much forgotten about them.

“Well,” Deborah said with that note in her voice. “What happens when you leave a bucket of potatoes out, and it rains on them and then it gets really hot?” She could have skipped the science lesson. I’ve lived long enough to know these things. “Anyhow,” she continued, “those potatoes are terrible. They stink awful! Somebody better do something with them!”

Oh, dear! Well. Somebody should, I guess. I wished it wouldn’t need to be me. She wasn’t offering anytime soon, obviously. And I was getting ready for a wedding. Certain Man was getting ready for the wedding, and he had to preach tomorrow, so I didn’t want to disturb him. Besides, I felt really guilty about needing to get rid of them, what with the hard work he had put into planting them and digging them. We had gotten some really good eating off our small patch, but there’s never a good reason for wasting “the end of the bucket.” And it happens entirely too often at this house. I decided, though, in light of the wedding and such, that I was going to let it go until we got back. I was doing some laundry for Blind Linda, though, and a smell just kept wafting up every now and again, reminding me.

When Daniel and I left for the wedding, I decided to come clean about it. I told him how I thought a bucket of rotten potatoes on the back deck was making my house stink, and his only comment was a resolute, “Well, we will need to take care of that when we get home.” The wedding was sweet, and we enjoyed it very much, but it was getting dark by the time we got home, and I decided that I would just go ahead and take care of it while Daniel was doing other things, but he saw me loading up the golf cart with the offending bucket (upon which I had put a tight fitting lid) and he offered to help. I said that I thought I could do it, but he was pretty intent on helping me, so we meandered off together to the composter, and got everything dumped, and the bucket washed. Wow! Was I ever glad that was over! And he didn’t even scold me! Not that he usually does, but he doesn’t like hard work and good food going to waste, so home grown red potatoes and their use is a touchy subject.

Then we came into the house and he decided to go get milk and I said that I was going to take some clean laundry down to the nursing home and visit Linda a bit. So he got our milk pail and headed out. I went to get Blind Linda’s laundry into her laundry basket and laid her hang up clothes on top. Just as I was turning away from the closet, I smelled that terrible smell again. It was really bad. It seemed different from the “rotten potato” smell, and it definitely seemed to be in the area I was standing. So back to the fray I went, methodically searching all along the perimeters of the laundry room. When I got to the entry way, I definitely smelled the lingering aroma of rotten potatoes, but this other smell really was different somehow. It smelled like something dead. I opened the basement stairwell, and stuck my head into that confine and drew a deep breath. Nothing there offensive. I went back to the laundry room, opened the electric panel and sniffed there. Nothing. (I know, I know! The electric panel. One time there was a bad smell in the wall and it seemed to come out of the electric panel . . . ) I had just about given up when suddenly, I thought of something.

Early in the summer, one evening Certain Man and I were working out in the garden. He started his chicken house generator in the course of the evening, and a nest blew out of the exhaust pipe. Now usually this would have been one of those pesky starling nests, but this time, three tiny, beautiful eggs were spit out and they lay, unbroken on the grass. I looked at those eggs and I was heartsick. This was no starling nest. I carefully brought them into the house for identification, and had put them in a little container up on the shelf in the laundry room. I would look at them frequently, and think about the pair of Great Crested Flycatchers whose home we had unwittingly destroyed. I remembered their frantic cries and the way they flew anxiously about after their nest was destroyed and I wondered if they had found another suitable cavity in which to make their home. I had thought, briefly, that maybe I should get rid of those eggs, but they had seemed very stable up there on the shelf and they were so pretty, I just never did away with them.

Well, now was the time when I wished I had. One of them had succumbed to either the pressure inside, or from an inadvertent bump from without, and it was in a most disgusting, putrid and offensive state of disintegration. E-w-w-w-w-w! What a mess! It didn’t take this Delaware Grammy long to pick up the container, hold it at arm’s length (while I held my breath) so as not to catch another whiff of anything, and carry it to the outside dumpster where I unceremoniously disposed of it, Great Crested Flycatcher, notwithstanding.

And then I came back in to use some Febreeze and to replenish some plug-in air fresheners and to feel greatly relieved that the search for stink had been resolved, at least for now. Whew! What a relief, indeed!

And that’s the news on a lighter side from Shady Acres, where the night has turned to the beginning of a new day, and this Delaware Grammy is going to bed.

That Man That I Love Most and I have a daughter, Rachel, who is a trauma therapist with a firm in Washington, DC. Her work is mostly with the black population, and with the poor. By virtue of her training, (and even her job description) what she sees every day breaks my heart. (Which is a good reason for the practice she has of speaking in generalities and not telling me much about anything!)

A few months ago, before the present crisis, she wrote me one morning. I was surprised to see an email from her, because she usually calls. But on this morning, she had something specifically for me:

Hey Momma-

I wrote this today because I’ve had a lot of client’s come through here talking about their fear and their anxiety around having young, black sons. You usually seem to like to read the stuff I write, so I thought I’d send it to you.

There’s no expectation for you to read it or like it or even think it’s remotely good. I just wanted to share it with someone.

I was on my way home from Dover, just making my way down Shawnee Road, almost home when something caught my eye. It was a person, lying in the grass maybe 15 feet off the side of the road, a short distance from our chicken house lane. It appeared to be a woman, and she was in an almost fetal position, just lying in the soft grass. I had someone directly behind me, and I was preparing to turn into our lane, so I slowed down, and called Middle Daughter who was at home.

“Deborah, do you know anything about someone lying in the grass up beyond our chicken house lane?”

“Uh, no! There’s someone there?”

“Yes, there is. Would you please go with me up to check things out?” (I have a great deal of respect for Middle Daughter’s nursing abilities, and I was pretty sure that whoever was there wasn’t well.)

“Sure will!”

By now I had pulled up in front of our garage, and in a very short minute, Middle Daughter and I were on our way back up the road. The gal hadn’t moved. We pulled up alongside the road, and Deborah got out, while I waited in the van. When she got over to the gal, she roused up, sleepy and confused. I could not hear what was being said, but shortly Deborah and the stranger walked towards our car.

“She has been walking,” Deborah explained to me in low undertones, “and it got too hot. So She stopped to rest. She needs some fresh water and she needs to cool off.”

Certain Man had taken someone home a few weeks back that was walking home from work and was overcome by the heat, and I expected that this was somewhat the same case. We brought her home and Middle Daughter got fresh water, ice for the water bottles, and the gal was on a fast speed ahead chatty mode. Somewhere in the rapid fire conversation we pieced together her story and who she was. She was the granddaughter of old friends. When I asked which of their daughters was her mother, there was a bit of hesitation, and then she told me.

“Was she always a mess?” she asked with a crooked smile on her face.

I thought about the lives of the four children who were born to this couple and the irregular home life they had as children. “Those four children had a tough time,” I told her gently. “Life wasn’t easy for them.”

She didn’t look convinced, but chanted on about her life. I looked at her, skinny as all get out, tattoos covering much of the exposed skin. 28 years old. No lower teeth. And my heart ached.

“My boyfriend and I tried all day to get a ride from the hospital home, but couldn’t find anyone who could drive us. My boyfriend just got out of the hospital. He thought he had MRSA, but the doctor said that it was just infected hair follicles. We walked and walked, and finally I just couldn’t go on. I laid down beside the road on the grass, and he went on.”

“Where do you live?” We asked.

“Out on (a country) Road,” she said, mentioning an address over ten miles from the hospital.

There were plenty of other things shared, but a lot was neither cognitive nor an adequate explanation of why she was where she was on this hot afternoon.

“I just got out of the hospital myself,” she suddenly announced. “Just three days ago. Complete system shutdown and organ failure.” She didn’t seem to have any reservations about telling us these details, but she did not elaborate. By now we had gotten her water bottle refilled with a fresh supply of water with ice, and two to spare in case her boyfriend needed some, too, and Deborah was preparing to take her home.

I looked at her carefully and on impulse I asked her, “Is there anything else we can do for you? Give to you? Something that you might need?”

She ducked her head and looked wistful. “Uh, well, maybe you shouldn’t ask that to someone who has hardly eaten in three days. Would you have any food? Like some non perishables? I don’t think there is anything in the house.” Her voice was apologetic, hopeful, but not demanding.

Food. That was something we could do. There was most of a loaf of homemade bread on the counter, bananas, canned soups in the pantry, a large bottle of apple juice, baked beans, Spaghettios, an unopened 12-package box of Ramen Noodles. We gathered up a few things and put them into grocery sacks for her. She stood by the kitchen table, her hands clutching the bags as if she could hardly believe it.. She looked so vulnerable and broken.

I spoke her name as I walked close to her, and she looked up half expectantly, half fearfully. “–May I please pray for you?”

“Oh, yeah, sure, sure,” she said. “That would be okay. I mean, we all can use some prayers.”

I drew her into my chest like she was one of my own girlies and she came willingly enough. She was skin and bones in my arms, I could feel her ribs and backbone hard against her skin and I wanted to cry. I didn’t pray long, but i tried to pray as much Love and Grace and Divine Direction as I could into a short half minute or so. She wasn’t very comfortable in the situation. I was barely a couple of words into the prayer when I felt her right hand, under my arm, making a flicking motion, like she was brushing away the words as fast as they were spoken. I finished quickly, hugged her one more time, and she went off with her bags with Deborah, looking more like a gangly 14 year old girl as she walked away than the 45 year old woman she looked like when I could see her face.

She went home to a small, disheveled trailer on a back country road. Six adults lived there together, and no one had a vehicle. Although Middle Daughter’s work takes her into many difficult situations, this particular situation weighed heavy on her heart. When there was no sign of the “boyfriend” the whole nine miles between our house and the trailer, she took another way home, found him and took him home as well.

Like a puzzle of dark colors with almost no defined lines and certainly no straight edge pieces, this story haunts me. I feel like there are pieces lying on the table that are whole and good. And we all know that a puzzle with an irregular border can be/is beautiful, but I feel like there are lost pieces and damaged pieces, that are so far gone that any hope of this puzzle ever fitting together in a whole seems very, very remote. I do not know this girlie’s heart. I know that there has been exposure to Jesus and his claims upon her life. I also know that she has seen people not live out what they professed. It’s no excuse, but people have used it from the beginning of time, and it still gets used today. I heard enough in the few minutes that she was in my kitchen to know that under everything that would cause me to cringe, there is a heart that has been broken.